The subject invention pertains to small plastic storage boxes and, more particularly, to a small transparent plastic box which may be of modular construction and which is particularly adaptable to use for the storage and display of trading cards.
Trading cards covering a wide variety of subjects and topics have been popular for many years. Sports figures, entertainment personalities, cartoon characters, animals, and many other items have been made the subject of trading cards, which may be more accurately described as collector's cards.
Collections of cards covering any one subject or topic may easily run into the thousands and, as a result, storage containers for trading card collections are necessary, not only to help organize and categorize the collection, but to provide protection for the cards as well. Typical trading cards are made of relatively thin paperboard stock, e.g. 0.020 inch (0.5 mm) in thickness, and are usually cut to a size of 21/2 inches by 31/2 inches (about 6 cm by 9 cm). Typical trading or collecting cards contain a photograph or picture on the front side and printed information about the subject on the back side.
Card collectors have used a variety of enclosures and containers to store and protect cards. Cards may be individually enclosed in transparent plastic sleeves or even laminated in plastic. More typically, sets of related cards are stored in small boxes, usually in a manner in which a stack of cards is inserted edgewise. Thus, the box may be approximately 21/2 inches wide, 31/2 inches high and long enough to accommodate any desired stack length, for example, 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) long. A wide variety of small cardboard boxes are available and have been used for such card storage. In order to catalog or keep track of the contents of these boxes, some sort of indicia must be attached or applied to the outside.
Plastic boxes of a wide variety of sizes and shapes are also available for the storage of card collections. However, these containers also typically require the application of some sort of indicia to the outside to identify the contents, if desired.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,979,619 and 5,046,616 both show transparent plastic holders for baseball cards or similar trading cards. The earlier patent discloses a card holder for a single card which is laminated or heat sealed to enclose the card. The container in the later patent has multiple compartments for individual cards which are separately openable. Neither of these containers is intended to hold a stack of cards.